Few Of A Kind
by sctwilightvampwolfgal
Summary: Tsukimi had always felt like the odd mer out, and yet her mother had kept her going and now Kuranosuke keeps her going. *Inspired by the MerMay 2019 Calendar by UniqueLeeLikesArt's prompt for today: Family.*


Just looking at her, you wouldn't guess that she was a mer, or at least if you didn't realize the variance of colors, shapes, sizes, and species of mer. It's easy to picture a shark or a dolphin or an angler fish or even just a regular fish, but very few pause to consider a jellyfish mer. Tsukimi wasn't traditional, not in the sense of sailor's tales and old legends; she isn't technically the only one of her kind, even as she moves closely beside her mouth, all of not even eight years old and nervous to be passing by mers who wore pretty jewelry, dressed themselves in fancier styles, and often zoomed by with a practiced elegance and ease that few picked up on by themselves.

Her mother's tail was long and thin with crisscrossed layers of light blue scales, and even as young as Tsukimi was, she realized that the tales about mermaids that were rumored to exist from how the humans spoke of them, were about ones like her mother. She hugged close, carefully moving her tentacles away from her mother, always wary that she could accidentally shock her and not wanting to harm her as they made their way to the market.

Her mother was humming on old tune to herself, that Tsukimi could just imagine her singing, though when they got home really, old scrolls would be pulled out and recently checked out library books. Jellyfish would be described as if they were more fascinating as creatures than the tail that always made Tsukimi pause and feel like a part of them, especially since no one she knew had her kind of tail. Her mother always listened and was there for her, and somehow that made the slow passage of time worthwhile.

* * *

She's not sure if it is his tail that called her to focus, how delicate and light and free it appeared, even though she knew it was like hers. Tsukimi's were white tentacles, and Kuranosuke's flowed into bright oranges to dull whites and back again. It made her stop and marvel the first time that she was clear headed enough to tell.

It could have just as easily been his nature, how he defended her, how he cared, and how somehow through a rather unlikely friendship, she began to fall. Kuranosuke is the jellyfish mer that she half the time wishes that she was; he's like a princess, and she feels like an outcast. His tail came from his mother's side of the family and how pretty she was, and yet Tsukimi was not unaware of how handsome and strong his brother's tail was, how the shark fins stretched and smoothed out, how the added fins added character too. He appeared like a strong prince in a dream, and she knew how his gentleness only amplified the beauty of a shark in his brother.

She also knew that despite growing up realizing how different her tail was and finding herself an outsider from it, that her main focus on the two of them was not limited or controlled by their tails. Tsukimi twisted tentacles idly in her hands, feeling the hint of a shock that never hurt her, and counting down the nerve induced seconds; what if this was a mistake? The cute, white fabric that draped her friend almost like a dress did not quite stop these sets of nerves. What if the jellyfish mer trait was recessive, and they had shark mer babies and didn't know how to raise them? It didn't matter to Tsukimi that her mother had managed to raise a jellyfish mer just fine without being one.

Tsukimi paused to try to calm down, hands smoothed over the natural 'skirt' of the dome, the beginning of her tail that sloped down into various tentacles that flowed down and helped her move in the sea and kept her steady. She knew that she was not a freak of nature, but she still found those nerves within her. Just, how would they manage? Both on a biological scale were not full jellyfish mer, though it came through for each of them. Kuranosuke was part shark mer, part jellyfish mer though the gene that carried through was his jellyfish mer appearance and tendencies. Tsukimi was a regular mermaid, the most common one that merely resembled a fish tail extended from the torso with scales in a set color and a jellyfish mer, though her jellyfish appearance naturally carried over, instead of the more regular mer.

Just what if they were incompatable in the ways that they'd never imagined before? It carried with it its own worries.

* * *

"Momma! Momma!" Suddenly, two excited hands with grabbing at a waist and clinging close, blue tentacles not seeming to mind or notice the shock between them.

"Careful, you don't want to accidentally hurt someone with your tail." Tsukimi felt like she'd blinked, and he was five, even as she heard their three year old already start her way over. She wanted to be like her father, 'pretty' and all.

"Momma, she's being mean." Somedays, Tsukimi could be swimming a marathon with the amount of exhaustion and stress of raising merchildren, even knowing that at least they were both jellyfish mer, which eased some of her worry. Today just happened to be one of those days, as she rested an exhausted hand over her stomach, feeling the life growing inside of her move almost restlessly as if counting down to her third baby's first swim.

"Okay," Tsukimi shook her head, "Come inside, and we'll sort this out." She'd reach out for her husband's help, and besides, he helped make this family a family.


End file.
